The internal and external tiling of buildings, industrial and residential areas, health facilities, etc., is commonly made of natural and artificial construction materials, the most used materials being marble and granite, as well as ceramic tiles of various kind. In addition to being decorative, the construction materials used should be functional, exhibiting the following characteristics: long durability, resistance to weather effects; resistance to corrosion; inert behavior to chemicals; thermal insulation properties; resistance to abrasion; and, at the same time it should also be economical in both production and installation costs.
It is known that no natural or ceramic material meets all the aforementioned requirements. Additionally, during production of natural stone plates or tiles of larger dimensions, non-homogeneity of structure has been exhibited, and cavities in, and porousness of starting material have been found.
Although several previous patent applications in various countries have disclosed the manufacture of construction materials from glass, none of the described processes describes the creation of a tile from such materials with a face that is substantially free from imperfections. See, German Patent Application No. DE 41 25 698 issued to Bass et al.; German Patent Application No. DE 43 19 808, issued to Lingart; and Russian Patent No. 546569, assigned to Glavmospromstroimat.
To provide for such a defect free surface on the construction material produced, it is essential to maintain a selected viscosity in the upper (second) layer of the tile throughout thermal treatment to avoid air bubbles from forming and moving through the material and hardening on the surface of the finished product. Additional steps should be taken to minimize movement of air bubbles being generated during thermal treatment from the lower regions to the face of the finished product. Further, prior disclosures do not permit the production of construction tiling material of another shape than plates, e.g. of a shape of a cylinder. The procedures previously disclosed also do not permit simultaneous production of decorative and construction material, which may be also used as an independent construction element.